Lara Croft is an Ice Climber Now

I saw this large display ad for a new version of Tomb Raider while shopping over the weekend, and I just can’t help but to share it with you all. Check out those fancy ice climbing tools! Apparently Lara Croft is an ice climber now. She’s kicking ass and taking names, with her flare, and her bow and arrow, and her ice tools, which appear to be DMM Rebels, and both of which has an adze and neither of which has a hammer. Is she afraid of gashing her face open with an adze if one of those tools pops loose? Heck no. She’s totally that confident. Do you see a harness anywhere? No. You do not. Lara Croft free solos everything, always, because she’s a total freakin’ badass. She’s the Alex Honnold of ice.

What’s that? Where’s her helment you ask? Pshaw! Give me a break. She doesn’t even wear gloves! Of course the way that second tool dangles from her belt by the pommel with the pick swinging about at her knee marks her as a total NOOB. We’ll forgive her for that though, because shooting a bow and arrow while “on the sharp end” isn’t exactly easy. She deserves a lot of credit for that. Heck, I wouldn’t even try.

Actually, looking at some screen grabs from the game, Lara is a much more sane ice climber than the display ad suggests. Look at the image below. She’s got a harness, and a rope, and if you look closely, also a few ice screws. Of course why she’s tied to that other climber suicide-pact style with a 30mm container ship mooring rope is certainly a valid question. It looks like she’s about to take a whipper and I doubt that that other climber can hold the fall. It probably helps, in a situation like that, to have extra lives.

Lara Croft Suicide Pact.

Lara Croft Carries Ice Screws.

Location: Your XBOX, apparently.

Update: Sept. 29, 2015

Special thanks to Eddie Ferrer for sharing this Tomb Raider game demo YouTube Video, where Lara, with the climbing rope attached to a gear loop on her harness, takes a factor 2 fall onto the other climber who is not anchored, but merely attached to the ice with is tools. Awesome!